Slacker's Paradise: It's Really Like That In Austin, Texas

AUSTIN, Texas - "I may live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it," a character declares in "Slacker." It's a fitting motto for many of the aimless wanderers who have found their way here, where the movie was filmed.

Warm weather, a low cost of living, a liberal political climate and a culturally open atmosphere combine to make Austin a welcoming environment for those who aren't motivated by America's traditional standards of success. The University of Texas attracts young people to the city, and while some move on to pursue high salaries and status in Dallas, Houston or a more distant metropolis, many simply find Austin too comfortable to leave.

Some stretch out their schooling for as long as their parents will bankroll them. Some finally get their degrees only to wind up working in bookstores or coffee shops.

Some join bands with names like Bouffant Jellyfish or the Hickoids, work menial day jobs and hang out at nightclubs where they know they can get in free. (One local writer used to refer to Austin as "The Little Town with the Big Guest List.")

When director Rick Linklater says his film is based on fact, he's not kidding. A bartender in one scene is, in real life, a bartender/musician named Wammo who often lives on the "couch circuit" with friends for as long as they're willing to put him up. The aforementioned man who lives badly but doesn't have to work to do it is a common sight at some of Austin's seedier nightclubs and is known to most of his fellow club goers as "Doug the Slug." A woman who tries to sell a Madonna pap smear in the movie is in reality a former drummer for the hard-core band the Butthole Surfers.

Those who appear in the movie are hardly the city's only slackers. A columnist for Austin's daily newspaper recently responded to the hype surrounding the film by announcing a search for the city's greatest true slacker, and he quickly received a horde of worthy nominations.

By the same token, not all the nearly 100 people who appear in the movie are as slack as they seem on the screen. Among the friends and amateur actors Linklater called upon in making the film are a University of Texas professor of philosophy, the editor of the city's burgeoning weekly newspaper and the leader of a much-talked-about band.

Yet even the more financially stable members of the cast can relate to the loosely structured lifestyle documented in "Slacker." Linklater insists that being a slacker depends more on your frame of mind than your employment, and the film's more gainfully employed characters/actors tend to agree.

Take Frank Orrall, who portrays a likable but luckless coffee shop diner in one of the movie's early scenes. Four years ago, he and several friends left their home state of Hawaii to travel across the U.S. and play music on the streets wherever they went, billing themselves as Poi Dog Pondering. It seemed a slackerly thing to do, until they eventually settled in Austin, began attracting major-label interest and signed a multi-album deal with Columbia Records. Slackers no more.

These days Poi Dog Pondering is a job and not just an adventure for Orrall, but he says many elements of slackerdom still apply to his life.

"I can find myself in there" - figuratively as well as literally - he says of the movie. "I think it's really about people who are leery of corporate America and are trying not to got caught up in that game.

"It's not just about people who don't want to work or want to evade responsibility . . . This isn't a noble culture we live in. These people are just trying to find a way to live nobly within that culture, and so they end up somewhere in between."